What information is needed to register a trademark?
To register a trademark or service mark, the following information is needed:
- The applicant must determine how the mark will be depicted. A trademark registration can be done in a stylized or standard character form. A stylized mark is a mark that contains style or design elements beyond the trademark itself, like colors, fonts and graphical elements. These elements will be protected as a whole, along with the text. A standard character mark is plain text, without formatting or design. This gives broad trademark protection of the mark, but doesn’t protect any stylistic elements.
- The applicant must identify the classes of goods and/or services with which the mark will be associated. There are 45 International Trademark/Servicemark Classes from which to choose, and the base trademark filing fee is multiplied by the number of Classes selected.
- The applicant must describe the particular goods/services within each Class which be identified with the mark.
- For each of the identified goods/services, the registration must be based either on actual use of the mark in commerce or a bonafide intent to use the mark in connection with the goods/services at some future date.
- If the registration is based on actual use in commerce of the mark, the date of first use must be provided.